Day: February 2, 2017

LANCASTER –- Inaccuracies, melodrama, bias, outrage: Journalists showcased plenty during election night news coverage which proved to be intense — and endless. The phenomenon has taken a toll. The weary nation appears to be peeved at the press, and that includes Democrats and Republicans alike who are literally turning away. The press didn’t see it coming. Or did they? This week, we examine the role of data – and delusion – in this election.

During the presidential election, one can most certainly say this was the most challenging presidential campaign season for both voters and the American news media. With candidates such as Hillary Clinton, a woman so closed in and Donald Trump, a loose cannon man, this election season has been one heck of a ride. The election of Donald Trump was a surprise for many journalists, pollsters, and pundits, who are now asking what went wrong and what was missed along the way. There have been strong debates in deciding whether or not the press saw it coming when Trump was elected or whether they were too wrapped in getting “dirt” on Clinton.

America deals with the fallout of the election and many people within the country are straying away from media coverage. Democrats covering approximately 36 percent, are known to most likely avoid certain gaze from newspapers and television news. Whereas 21 percent of Republicans try to avoid the news at all costs. According to Peter Moore, a YouGov analyst from the Washington Times, says, “only 11 percent of Americans believe reading or watching the news lately is the reason for them being in such a great mood.”

Questions such as “How did everyone in the media miss the Trump phenomenon? Were there signs that were ignored? Or was the media so ensconced in its data-driven ways that it missed the forest for the trees?” continue to stem from collective delusion — not a lack of information — and is the reason why the press is in shock. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter sprang up huge conversation when it became clear Donald Trump would soon defeat Hillary Clinton in this year’s presidential election.

However, Vice President Joseph R. Biden believed President-elect Donald Trump won the election by diverting the media’s attention away from serious issues to scandals and outrageous rhetoric. Biden states, “When a guy talks about grabbing a woman’s private parts, when a guy says some of the incredibly outrageous things that were said, it sucks up all the oxygen in the air,” Mr. Biden said in an address at the New York University School of Law. “There wasn’t much of a discussion of issues, even in the debates.”

The vice president said the “coarse” campaign was “dispiriting.” “I find myself embarrassed by the nature and the way in which this campaign was conducted,” Mr. Biden said. “So much for the shining city on a hill.” Mr. Biden strongly believes Mr. Trump distracted the media intentionally away from issues such as Hillary Clinton’s plan for free college tuition. “I guess it was P.T. Barnum who said there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” Mr. Biden said. “And Trump says it. It turns out, he’s pretty damned smart in terms of being able to figure out how to deal with the press. You would have thought some of the things he said would be just, ipso facto, disqualifying for president of the United States of America. But such a negative campaign seemed to take everybody’s eye off the ball.”

So what did the media choose to cover? Biden then states media focused more on writing and broadcasting about Clinton’s private email server than about the ideas and planning to reform taxes, alongside the dealing of issues with China. Criticism dogged Hillary Clinton at every step of the general election. Her “bad press” outpaced her “good press” by 64 percent to 36 percent. She was criticized for everything from her speaking style to her use of emails. As Clinton was being attacked in the press, Donald Trump was attacking the press, claiming that it was trying to “rig” the election in her favor. If that’s true, journalists had a peculiar way of going about it.

Trump’s coverage during the general election was more negative than Clinton’s, running 77 percent negative to 23 percent positive. But over the full course of the election, it was Clinton, not Trump, who was more often the target of negative coverage. Overall, the coverage of her candidacy was 62 percent negative to 38 percent positive, while his coverage was 56 percent negative to 44 percent positive.

So rather than focusing on strengths or weaknesses in specific demographics, or other factors that may have pushed this race in one direction or another, these stats clearly suggest what many people have said all along. Both candidates were very unpopular. And as for media, who knows who they voted for.

Black History Month, also known as African-American History Month in America, is an annual observance in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom for remembrance of important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. It is celebrated annually in the United States and Canada in February, and the United Kingdom in October.

History

Negro History Week (1926)

The precursor to Black History Month was created in 1926 in the United States, when historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History announced the second week of February to be “Negro History Week.” This week was chosen because it coincided with the birthday of Abraham Lincoln on February 12 and of Frederick Douglass on February 14, both of which dates Black communities had celebrated together since the late 19th century.

From the event’s initial phase, primary emphasis was placed on encouraging the coordinated teaching of the history of American blacks in the nation’s public schools. The first Negro History Week was met with a lukewarm response, gaining the cooperation of the Departments of Education of the states of North Carolina, Delaware, and West Virginia as well as the city school administrations of Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Despite this far from universal acceptance, the event was regarded by Woodson as “one of the most fortunate steps ever taken by the Association,” and plans for a repeat of the event on an annual basis continued apace.

At the time of Negro History Week’s launch, Woodson contended that the teaching of black history was essential to ensure the physical and intellectual survival of the race within broader society:

“If a race has no history, it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated. The American Indian left no continuous record. He did not appreciate the value of tradition; and where is he today? The Hebrew keenly appreciated the value of tradition, as is attested by the Bible itself. In spite of worldwide persecution, therefore, he is a great factor in our civilization.”[

By 1929 The Journal of Negro History was able to note that with only two exceptions, officials with the State Departments of Educations of “every state with considerable Negro population” had made the event known to that state’s teachers and distributed official literature associated with the event.” Churches also played a significant role in the distribution of literature in association with Negro History Week during this initial interval, with the mainstream and black press aiding in the publicity effort.

Negro History Week was met with enthusiastic response; it prompted the creation of black history clubs, an increase in interest among teachers, and interest from progressive whites. Negro History Week grew in popularity throughout the following decades, with mayors across the United States endorsing it as a holiday.

On 21 February 2016, 106 year Washington D.C. resident and school volunteer Virginia McLaurin visited the White House as part of Black History Month. When asked by the president why she was there, Virginia said, “A black president. A black wife. And I’m here to celebrate black history. That’s what I’m here for.”

United States: Black History Month (1976)

Natchez, MS, Museum of African American History and Culture

The expansion of Black History Week to Black History Month was first proposed by the leaders of the Black United Students at Kent State University in February 1969. The first celebration of the Black History Month took place at Kent State one year later, in February 1970.

In 1976 as part of the United States Bicentennial, the informal expansion of Negro History Week to Black History Month was officially recognized by the U.S. government. President Gerald Ford spoke in regards to this, urging Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”

United Kingdom (1987)

Black History Month was first celebrated in the United Kingdom in 1987. It was organized through the leadership of Ghanaian analyst Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, who then served as a coordinator of special projects for the Greater London Council (GLC) and created a collaboration to get it underway. It was first celebrated in London and has become a national institution.

Canada (1995)

In 1995, after a motion by politician Jean Augustine, representing the riding of Etobicoke—Lakeshore in Ontario, Canada’s House of Commons officially recognized February as Black History Month and honored Black Canadians. In 2008, Senator Donald Oliver moved to have the Senate officially recognize Black History Month, which was unanimously approved.

Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson (born August 26, 1918) is an African-American physicist and mathematician who made contributions to the United States’ aeronautics and space programs with the early application of digital electronic computers at NASA. Known for accuracy in computerized celestial navigation, she conducted technical work at NASA that spanned decades. During this time, she calculated the trajectories, launch windows, and emergency back-up return paths for many flights from Project Mercury, including the early NASA missions of John Glenn and Alan Shepard, and the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon, through the Space Shuttle program. Her calculations were critical to the success of these missions. Johnson also did calculations for plans for a mission to Mars.

Katherine Coleman was born in 1918, to Joshua and Joylette Coleman in White Sulphur Springs, Greenbrier County, West Virginia. She was the youngest of four children. Her father was a lumberman, farmer, and handyman and worked at the Greenbrier Hotel. Her mother was a former teacher. Her parents emphasized the importance of education.

Coleman showed a talent for math from an early age. Because Greenbrier County did not offer public schooling for African-American students past the eighth grade, the Coleman parents arranged for their children to attend high school in Institute, West Virginia. The family split their time between Institute during the school year and White Sulphur Springs in the summer.

Coleman graduated from high school at age 14. At age 15, she began attending West Virginia State College, a historically black college. As a student, Coleman took every math course the college offered. Multiple professors took Coleman under their wings, including chemist and mathematician Angie Turner King, who had mentored the girl throughout high school, and W.W. Schiefflin Claytor, the third African American to receive a PhD in math. Claytor added new math courses just for Coleman. Coleman graduated summa cum laude in 1937, with degrees in math and French, at age 18. After graduation, she moved to Marion, Virginia, to teach math, French, and music at Carnegie High School, a school for African-American students.

In 1938, Coleman became the first African-American woman to desegregate the graduate school at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. She was one of three African-American students, and the only female, selected to integrate the graduate school after the United States Supreme Court ruling Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938). The court ruled that states that provided public higher education to white students also had to provide it to black students, to be satisfied either by establishing black colleges and universities or by admitting black students to previously white-only universities.

Gabriel Fernandez: Jennifer Garcia, Palmdale Elementary school teacher testified in a preliminary hearing for Gabriel Fernandez, the 8 year old boy who died on May 24, 2013. Jennifer Garcia, stated she made her first call to DCFS hotline to report injuries approximately six months before Fernandez death.

Gabriel’s death has raised an uproar and criticism of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services. It was reported that social workers visited the family’s home multiples times to respond to allegations of abuse, but Gabriel Fernandez was never removed from the home.

Pearl Fernandez, 33, and her then-boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, 36, are awaiting trial for the murder of son. The District Attorney’s Office plans to seek the death penalty against the two.